The federal government has attributed its inability to generate the promised 5,000 megawatts of electricity on shortage of gas supply.
Minister of power, Abubakar Aliyu, stated this on Wednesday at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.
He regretted that power generation had remained at around 4,000 megawatts due to gas constraints despite the government‘s contract with the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) Plc.
The minister, however, assured that necessary ingredients had been obtained to resolve the problem as his ministry was working round the clock to improve the situation.
“Regarding the drop of electricity, yes, you know, the supply has so many players, gas, the cost that drops, issues of gas to some power plants, they cannot switch on their plant if they do, you will experience some drop, once they switch on, the electricity will increase,” he said.
“There may be a drop due to the fault of the generator. It’s mostly generation. I’ve been watching since like yesterday (Tuesday) evening, we had a generation of around 4,600 megawatts. And you know, we told you since 1st July, that we’ll be able to raise it to 5,000 when we activated the contract.
“And we have not been able to do so, due to some issues around gas contracts, gas to power, which we are trying to take care of. And we have gone very far with that, and I believe, it is for that reason that we’re able to reach up to 4,600 as of yesterday.
“This morning, it dropped to 4,100. So, this is what is happening. You will be experiencing this fluctuation due to all these issues around gas to power because gas is not something that we control directly, they will not give you gas until you pay. So, we
The minister further disclosed that the council also approved N2.74 billion as the revised estimates for the updated rates of building structures of compensation and resettlement of the communities affected by the construction of the 700 megawatts Zungeru Hydroelectric power project.
The approved amount revised the subsisting amount from N19.640 billion to N22.38 billion.
